Tando Creative Mad Hatter

So my scrappy mojo is being slightly squished at the moment with all the shifts I'm working for placement (and the extra ones for pennies!) plus science exam revision and dissertation reading (oh boy!) but I do have some lovely news to share; the Mad Hatter project I made from the Tando Creative kits I received for Christmas has now been featured on the Tando Creative blog, I'd be so grateful if you visited Tando here to visit and leave me some love if you liked it :)

My original post at The Scrappy Tree can be found here with lots more pictures :) this was a particularly special project for me because I sat down with my mum and nan to start this when we all got together at Christmas and decorated a hat each :)

 I realised when I saw Tando had published my project that I never got round to sharing the hats that my Mum and Nan made, and I loved them both so much it seemed a shame :) so here they are....

My Mum is a crafter too but it's something my Nan is newer to so I was excited to see her get into such a big project - it was a real labour of love!

Thanks for visiting today, it might be a little while til I'm able to visit again because life is well and truly in the way at the moment(!) but I will get there :)

Happy weekend

Gayle xx

My 365

I've been using a photo app called Collect since the beginning of January to collect a daily photo, and thankfully because it has a daily reminder option to ask you if you've taken a picture, I've managed to fill in all the little squares!

After having managed to keep it up for three months, I decided it might be time to think about blogging my pic for the month as an ongoing feature :) I won't bore you with January and February but here's March :)

1. Baked pumpkin loaf for the following day's Andy Skinner workshop.  2. Went to Andy Skinner workshop on image transfers - amazing!  3.  Family dinner at home, our dinner guest brought wine :)  4.  First day back at uni, used my new Cath Kidston ticket holder.  5.  Sunny day at Cardiff train station.  6.  Reading on the train.  7.  Sleeping Kitty on the Slanket.  8.  Fat Tony the hamster gets an extension.  9.  Spending time in the Scrappy Room; this is my mum's pen holder pot.  10.  Writing a book review for uni.  11. Sunny but cold; waiting at the busstop.  12.  Evening with friend Leanne playing Monopoly.  13.  Flutter: new game on iPhone, pretty but takes up lots of time.  14.  Fat Tony comes to sit on my hand for the first time.  15.  Red Nose Day and also Fat Tony's first time out in his new ball.  16.  Mickey Mouse toasted sandwich with yum Vegusto cheese.  17.  Doodling on night shift.  18.  Vegan ice cream with walnuts.  19.  Knitted baby booties finished.  20.  Sunny day!  21.  Rainy day :(  22.  Kitty reads the Kindle.  23.  Very funny internet link found on @stephenfry's newsfeed - fo Shizzle!  24.  Working on a tag.  25.  Working on Easter cards.  26.  Grim face on nightshift!  27.  Night shift picnic of houmous, falafels and pita bread.  28.  Dinner out with friend Jum.  29.  It's Easter for the Sims!  Dressed them in bunny outfits :)  30.  Kitty enjoying the sunshine from vantage point on back of sofa.  31.  Very excited hubs with 'eggstremely' large Easter egg.

Thanks for visiting!

Gayle xx

Happy Easter

(singing) We wish you a happy Easter, and a happy N... well, a warmer Spring!  It's blooming freezing!

We celebrated our Easter with a family meal yesterday; you might know that our family quite enjoys a meal at the Olive Garden when we visit the States (we had our wedding meal there for example) and as we don't have them here in the UK we decided to create an Italian style meal in the honour of Olive Garden!

We started with bruschetta...

...and Zuppa Toscana, a spicy sausage soup (hubs made me a veggie version, am reliably informed it was fairly close to the original as I've never tried it to compare!) which was very tasty - maybe slightly less garlic in the bruschetta topping next time, it was very tasty but extremely garlicky!

My main was large penne pasta shapes topped with tomato and herb sauce and roasted veggies (the roasted portabello mushrooms were to die for!)...

...while the meatosauruses had a pasta/steak/cheese combo.

For pudding we lined up ice creams (vanilla Swedish Glace for me) and lots of toppings...

...I was particularly excited by the dairy-free fudge, cinder toffee, millionaire's shortbread and chocolate sauce, omg!!  Gorgeous!!

Needless to say we were full to bursting after all that food!  But it was a nice taster to remind us of our holidays :)

Lastly I have to share this pic of hubs' easter egg; I don't think the picture does it justice because it's enormous!  I 'eggspecially' liked the easter pun iced on the front! :-D

Hope that you enjoyed your Easter, and your extra long weekend :)

Gayle xx

Push-up bra blogging...?

How's that for a title?  I have to admit, it's not mine!  I'm following a blog series called The Push-up Bra Approach to Blogging by Julie at Notes On Paper, which is kind of all about neglected blog syndrome which I am super guilty of.  I blog regularly elsewhere for other people, but then I kind of don't want to repeat myself here all the time; at the same time if I don't blog it here it feels like I haven't got the proof I did anything.

So much of what happens in my real life is kind of confidential; I can't write much about my job because of the confidentiality aspect.  I spend a lot of time making plans for future projects for The Scrappy Tree, which I can't share here because that spoils the surprise really(!).

So maybe I need to rethink what I blog, because a lot of the time I put myself off writing something  about craft projects (which, let's face it, is my main pastime outside of nursing) because I already wrote it somewhere else.

I take a lot of photos on my phone, and in fact I recorded a bunch of stuff for Ali Edwards' Day In The Life in February.  Blog post right there.  Pow.  Ali is running it monthly.  Monthly blog post. Pow. LOL

I suppose the point is that there's plenty of other things going on which I could talk about, if I wanted to.  And that probably needs to happen on a different day to my craft blogging posts.

So step 1 - a bit of reflection on my blogging - achieved!  In theory I should be back again soon with some more blogging.  Right?  Right.

Thanks for listening :)

Gayle xx

Steampunkery and Save The Children

Hello all! Two posts in just over a week, I am doing well ;) I wanted to share my most recent post at The Scrappy Tree...

 ...made for my Mum!  She is into all things steampunkish at the moment and I had a cough sweet tin going begging from the large stash of potentially alterable items in my bookcase, so this is the result.  I think my favourite thing is the little metal heart that says 'made with love' - I did actually pinch this from her stash though!  I've posted all the details of the materials used over at The Scrappy Tree :)

The eBay auction I mentioned in my last post...

...finished yesterday with a grand total of over $800 raised (over £500) which was marvellous, still can't believe that 15 crafty items could raise so much!  Guess the signatures of a certain famous actor (ahem! Kevin McKidd) really helped that along LOL thanks Kevin McKidd Online!
All brilliant stuff for Save The Children :) it's time now for our next Scrappy Tree project to get underway, we've got something cooking... :)

Am very excited that this weekend I'll be paying a visit to lovely Wendy at The Stamp Attic, it's been too long!  Am going along for a fabby class with a very fabby teacher so will have something to share from there very soon :) in the meantime I have posts lined up at The Scrappy Tree that I can't share yet (boo!) so just one more photo for now...

This is Fat Tony! The newest addition to our family, he is a Roborovski hamster we adopted from the Pets At Home Adoption Corner last weekend :) so cute!

Bless him, I have never noticed 'Adoption Corner' before but it seems to be for pets that couldn't be homed for one reason or another (not bought from the shop, returned to the shop because the owner couldn't care for them anymore) so if you live in the UK and you have a spare hamster pen or rabbit hutch in the garage (yes I dug around in the garage and salvaged an old hamster pen so we could offer Tony a home!) please visit your local Pets At Home, or visit Adoption For Pets to see if you can offer a forever home to a dog, cat, rabbit, guinea pig, hamster etc etc ;)

I start back at uni next week for our next block of lectures on dissertations and specialist nursing - can't wait!  Beginning of third year here we come :)

Gayle xx

Love and hearts

Hello all!  Hoping this Monday finds you well :) I am all done with my current placement and now officially finished my second year (hurrah!) so I have some very welcome catch-up time :)

I've posted a congratulations card...

...and a Valentine card...

...at The Scrappy Tree since last posting here, and received a very lovely homemade Valentine myself too :) which gave me big smiles, do love it when hubs goes to the effort of braving the scrappy room to make something himself :)
At this point honorable mention also has to go to Mal, winner of TST's love letter challenge; an absolutely fabulous altered piece which I'm sure is very much treasured by its recipient Jennie - excellent job Mal!

Now onto the hearts... TST has been working with Kevin McKidd Online to try to raise some money for Save The Children, so there will be an auction running from today to Monday 25th February selling items made by TST and signed by Kevin McKidd himself :) he seems like such a nice guy! If you're a fan please go visit and place a bid, if not we'd be really happy for any shares and retweets you can manage, it's all for a good cause!  You can see the TST post by clicking here, and follow the links from there to the auction.  I am responsible for the grungeboard heart keyrings, please be kind and bid! :-D

Hoping you have a wonderful week ahead, I am in the scrappy room getting stuck in! :)
Gayle xx

Projects and plans

Just sharing a few projects I've posted at The Scrappy Tree recently...

It's been quiet-ish craftwise with my current placement in surgery taking up quite a bit of my time, but we've been making plans at The Scrappy Tree for some exciting projects in the coming months that will hopefully also raise money for some good causes too, so look out for those :) can't wait!

Julie has also been posting some stamping technique videos at TST so if you're looking for some interesting effects go check them out :)

Thanks for visiting!

Gayle xx

Vegan food swap

This month I took part in the vegan food swap again having enjoyed my parcel of goodies so much last time :)

I sent my package of goodies off to Mitsu, who organises the whole swap she-bang, and I received my parcel from Liz, who lives not too far from me as it turns out!

Here's my swap parcel from Lisa minus one item...

...I have to admit, the banana walnut choc chip cookies didn't make it into the picture! Me and my family enjoyed them sooo much, what a sweet touch to add some home baked goodies to the parcel - thanks Liz! :)

Also in the parcel:-

Nakd bars (gingerbread and choc orange)

Sea salt, rosemary and garlic kettle chips

Bombay mix

Chocolate coated mini rice cakes

White chocolate buttons

Vanoffe dark raw chocolate

Gorgeous parcel of snacky treats, thanks Liz!

Gayle xx

Happy New Year!

So we made it through Christmas and here we are on the other side!

This year I have a flexible list of resolutions set up on my phone so I can add and amend as necessary.  No, I'm not going to list them here! Flexible list remember, you might expect me to be doing something I cross off mid-February! lol

But overall I think my resolutions show me that I want to keep making my life pretty so I enjoy it - craft time is important, but being creative in other areas is too, and I'll find new and interesting ways to make that happen :)

I have to say that this year has had some amazing times, I have learnt so much both about nursing, crafting and life in general!  I consider myself so lucky to have some brilliant crafty friends who I would never have met otherwise, and to be still involved with my TST girls, as well as this year joining the wonderful and welcoming Stamp Attic.  At times I still pinch myself and have a little squeal with excitement :-D

After being without my crafting space over Christmas, I've knitted myself into a coma LOL

...but, I am working on some papercrafting again, both a joint project with my Mum and Nan over Christmas (so completely blessed that I get to do this :) ) and my Journal Your Christmas album, which is coming together nicely now I've started putting my photos together ready for printing:-

This is my JYC album!  I used a 4x6 kraft photo album from Paperchase so I'm hoping everything will fit in, loving the ribbons to tie it closed! Very handy :)

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year, I am looking forward to 2013 and all it brings :)

Gayle xx